Thursday, January 12, 2012

Theatres and Fine Arts - by Frederick Bastiat

IV. -Theatres and Fine Arts

Ought the State to support the arts?

There is certainly much to be said on both sides
of this question. It may be said, in favor of the system of voting supplies
for this purpose, that the arts enlarge, elevate, and harmonize the soul
of a nation; that they divert it from too great an absorption in material
occupations, encourage in it a love for the beautiful, and thus act favourably
on its manners, customs, morals, and even on its -industry. It may be asked,
what would become of music in France without her Italian theatre and her
Conservatoire; of the dramatic art. without her Theatre-Francais; of painting
and sculpture, without our collections, galleries, and museums? It might
even be asked, whether, without centralization, and consequently the support
of fine arts, that exquisite taste would be developed which is the noble
appendage of French labour, and which introduces its productions to the
whole world? In the face of such results, would it not be the height of
imprudence to renounce this moderate contribution from all her citizens,
which, in fact, in the eyes of Europe, realizes their superiority and their
glory?
To these and many other reasons, whose force I do not dispute, arguments
no less forcible may be opposed. It might, first of all, be said, that
there is a question of distributive justice in it. Does the right of the
legislator extend to abridging the wages of the artisan, for the sake of
adding to the profits of the artist? M. Lamartine said, “If you cease
to support the theatre, where will you stop? Will you not necessarily be
led to withdraw your support from your colleges, your museums, your institutes,
and your libraries?” It might be answered, if you desire to support
everything which is good and useful, where will you stop? Will you not
necessarily be led to form a civil list for agriculture, industry, commerce,
benevolence, education? Then, is it certain that government aid favours
the progress of art?
This question is far from being settled, and we see very well that the
theatres which prosper are those which depend upon their own resources.
Moreover, if we come to higher considerations, we may observe, that wants
and desires arise, the one from the other, and originate in regions which
are more and more refined in proportion as the public wealth allows of
their being satisfied; that Government ought not to take part in this correspondence,
because in a certain condition of present fortune it could not by taxation
stimulate the arts of necessity, without checking those of luxury, and
thus interrupting the natural course of civilization. I may observe, that
these artificial transpositions of wants, tastes, labour, and population,
place the people in a precarious and dangerous position, without any solid
basis.
These are some of the reasons alleged by the adversaries of State intervention
in what concerns the order in which citizens think their wants and desires
should be satisfied, and to which, consequently, their activity should
be directed. I am, I confess, one of those who think that choice and impulse
ought to come from below and not from above, from the citizen and not from
the legislator; and the opposite doctrine appears to me to tend to the
destruction of liberty and of human dignity.
But, by a deduction as false as it is unjust, do you know what economists
are accused of? It is, that when we disapprove of Government support, we
are supposed to disapprove of the thing itself whose support is discussed;
and to be the enemies of every kind of activity, because we desire to see
those activities, on the one hand free, and on the other seeking their
own reward in themselves. Thus, if we think that the State should not interfere
by taxation in religious affairs, we are atheists. If we think the State
ought not to interfere by taxation in education, we are hostile to knowledge.
If we say that the State ought not by taxation to give a fictitious value
to land, or to any particular branch of industry, we are enemies to property
and labour. If we think that the State ought not to support artists, we
are barbarians who look upon the arts as useless.
Against such conclusions as these I protest with all my strength. Far
from entertaining the absurd idea of doing away with religion, education,
property, labour, and the arts, when we say that the State ought to protect
the free development of all these kinds of human activity, without helping
some of them at the expense of others, -we think, on the contrary, that
all these living powers of society would develop themselves more harmoniously
under the influence of liberty; and that, under such an influence no one
of them would, as is now the case, be a source of trouble, of abuses, of
tyranny, and disorder.
Our adversaries consider, that an activity which is neither aided by
supplies, nor regulated by Government, is an activity destroyed. We think
just the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in mankind; ours
is in mankind, not in the legislator.
Thus M. Lamartine said, “Upon this principle we must abolish the
public exhibitions, which are the honour and the wealth of this country.”
But I would say to M. Lamartine, -According to your way of thinking, not
to support is to abolish; because, setting out upon the maxim that nothing
exists independently of the will of the State, you conclude that nothing
lives but what the State causes to live. But I oppose to this assertion
the very example which you have chosen, and beg you to remark, that the
grandest and noblest of exhibitions, one which has been conceived in the
most liberal and universal spirit -and I might even make use of the term
humanitary, for it is no exaggeration -is the exhibition now preparing
in London; the only one in which no Government is taking any part, and
which is being paid for by no tax.
To return to the fine arts: -there are, I repeat, many strong reasons
to be brought, both for and against the system of Government assistance.
The reader must see, that the especial object of this work leads me neither
to explain these reasons, nor to decide in their favour, nor against them.
But M. Lamartine has advanced one argument which I cannot pass by in
silence, for it is closely connected with this economic study. “The
economical question, as regards theatres, is comprised in one word -labour.
It matters little what is the nature of this labour; it is as fertile,
as productive a labour as any other kind of labour in the nation. The theatres
in France, you know, feed and salary no less than 80,000 workmen of different
kinds; painters, masons, decorators, costumers, architects, &c., which
constitute the very life and movement of several parts of this capital,
and on this account they ought to have your sympathies.” Your sympathies!
say, rather, your money.
And further on he says: “The pleasures of Paris are the labour
and the consumption of the provinces, and the luxuries of the rich are
the wages and bread of 200,000 workmen of every description, who live by
the manifold industry of the theatres on the surface of the republic, and
who receive from these noble pleasures, which render France illustrious,
the sustenance of their lives and the necessaries of their families and
children. It is to them that you will give 60,000 francs.” (Very well;
very well. Great applause.) For my part I am constrained to say, “Very
bad! Very bad!” Confining his opinion, of course, within the bounds
of the economical question which we are discussing.
Yes, it is to the workmen of the theatres that a part, at least, of
these 60,000 francs will go; a few bribes, perhaps, may be abstracted on
the way. Perhaps, if we were to look a little more closely into the matter,
we might find that the cake had gone another way, and that these workmen
were fortunate who had come in for a few crumbs. But I will allow, for
the sake of argument, that the entire sum does go to the painters, decorators,
&e.
This is that which is seen. But whence does it come? This is the other
side of the question, and quite as important as the former. Where do these
60, francs spring from? and where would they go if a vote of the Legislature
did not direct them first towards the Rue Rivoli and thence towards the
Rue Grenelle? This is what is not seen. Certainly, nobody will think of
maintaining that the legislative vote has caused this sum to be hatched
in a ballot urn; that it is a pure addition made to the national wealth;
that but for this miraculous vote these 60,000 francs would have been for
ever invisible and impalpable. It must be admitted that all that the majority
can do, is to decide that they shall be taken from one place to be sent
to another; and if they take one direction, it is only because they have
been diverted from another.
This being the case, it is clear that the taxpayer, who has contributed
one franc, will no longer have this franc at his own disposal. It is clear
that he will be deprived of some gratification to the amount of one franc;
and that the workman, whoever he may be, who would have received it from
him, will be deprived of a benefit to that amount. Let us not, therefore,
be led by a childish illusion into believing that the vote of the 60,000
francs may add any thing whatever to the well-being of the country, and
to the national labour. It displaces enjoyments, it transposes wages -that
is all.
Will it be said that for one kind of gratification, and one kind of
labour, it substitutes more urgent, more moral, more reasonable gratifications
and labour? I might dispute this; I might say, by taking 60,000 francs
from the tax-payers, you diminish tile wages of labourers, drainers, carpenters,
blacksmiths, and increase in proportion those of the singers.
There is nothing to prove that this latter class calls for more sympathy
than the former. M. Lamartine does not say that it is so. He himself says,
that the labour of the theatres is as fertile, as productive as any other
(not more so); and this may be doubted; for the best proof that the latter
is not so fertile as the former lies in this, that the other is to be called
upon to assist it.
But this comparison between the value and the intrinsic merit of different
kinds of labour, forms no part of my present subject. All I have to do
here is to show, that if M. Lamartine and those persons who commend his
line of argument have seen on one side the salaries gained by the providers
of the comedians, they ought on the other to have seen the salaries lost
by the providers of the taxpayers; for want of this, they have exposed
themselves to ridicule by mistaking a displacement for a gain. If they
were true to their doctrine, there would be no limits to their demands
for Government aid; for that which is true of one franc and of 60,000 is
true, under parallel circumstances, of a hundred millions of francs.
When taxes are the subject of discussion, Gentlemen, you ought to prove
their utility by reasons from the root of the matter, but not by this unlucky
assertion -“The public expenses support the working classes.”
This assertion disguises the important fact, that public expenses always
supersede private expenses, and that therefore we bring a livelihood to
one workman instead of another, but add nothing to the share of the working
class as a whole. Your arguments are fashionable enough, but they are too
absurd to be justified by anything like reason.